Connected through cycling
Reverend discusses spirituality on 2 wheels in book Holy Spokes
BOSTON (AP) — Bicycling through Boston’s twisting, traffic-clogged streets may seem more about self-preservation than spiritual enlightenment.
For the Rev. Laura Everett, her daily 10-kilometre commute is a way of connecting to her adopted city, its residents, and her sense of community and vulnerability.
Instead of hopping on the subway and popping up in another part of town, Everett said, bicycling has exposed her to the warp and weft of Boston’s neighbourhoods and the people who animate them.
It’s also led her to a new sense of spirituality and inspired her to turn her experiences into a new book, Holy Spokes: The Search for Urban Spirituality on Two Wheels.
“Part of the regularity of a daily commute is what I think forms it to be a spiritual discipline,” said Everett.
“That commitment to the same route time and time again, starting to see the same people, seeing the same neighbourhoods, seeing the trees change from budding to bursting — that is where I started noticing this is really having an effect not just on how I move through the city, but on my soul.”
Along the way, Everett, executive director of the Massachusetts Council of Churches, stumbled on an impromptu congregation — a tribe of fellow bicyclists who share the joys and terrors of Boston’s streets.
The 38-year-old has married bicycle couples and officiated at an annual “blessing of the bicycles” in which bicyclists gather to pray for fellow cyclists who have died and let Everett and others anoint their bikes with a mix of holy oil and chain lube.
Everett’s most poignant contribution may be her participation in “ghost bike” ceremonies.
Ghost bikes refer to the practice of painting a bicycle and its tires white and locking it near where a bicyclist has died, often after being struck by a car or truck.
“Bicyclists have the experience of knowing our own vulnerability, and knowing that in some ways our safety is dependent on the actions of others,” she said.
Ken Carlson, head of the Somerville Bicycle Advisory Committee, first met Everett at a ghost bike ceremony for Cambridge bicyclist Marcia Deihl, who died in 2015 after being struck by a dump truck.
“I was really touched and impressed with Laura and her deep sense of empathy, sympathy and connection to the bicycle community,” he said.
Bicycling raises another spiritual challenge, Everett said: anger.
“What does it mean to absorb other people’s anger? What do you do with your own anger? How do you live in a system that’s unjust,” she said. “Those roads aren’t fair.”